Even at age 64, Cristanne Miller still rides her bicycle to UB a
few days a week. Miller’s affinity for the two-wheeled
commute began at an early age — and out of necessity —
in Des Moines, Iowa, where she grew up.

“We had a large family and just one car, but everybody had
a bike. If you wanted to go somewhere, you rode your
bicycle,” says Miller, SUNY Distinguished Professor, Edward
H. Butler Professor of English and interim chair of the Department
of English.

Miller continued riding throughout her undergraduate and
graduate school years at the University of Chicago, and pretty much
everywhere ever since. She has been making the 10-mile commute to
UB from the Elmwood Village, which typically takes about 50 minutes
depending on the wind, since arriving in Buffalo 11 years ago.

She’s among what you might call UB’s road warriors,
the hearty souls who trek to campus on two wheels instead of four.
Ask around and you’ll find a growing list of UB faculty,
staff and students who regularly ride to and from campus for
reasons ranging from sheer enjoyment to health and wellness.

“It connects you to the whole environment. I see people
and smell things I wouldn’t in a vehicle,” says Janice
Cochran, a nutritionist with Wellness Education Services who bikes
frequently from her home about 3 ½ miles from campus.
“It’s an energizer. My mood changes when I get on the
bike.”

The best thing about biking to work, according to those who do
it, is that you don’t need to be a Tour de France
yellow-jersey winner with leg muscles capable of churning up the
steepest climbs in the Alps. Nor do you have to be an activist
cyclist who goes “bare as you dare” — meaning
letting it all hang out — which, incidentally,
actually happened last month in Buffalo. (Disclaimer: UBNow neither
endorses nor disapproves of such roadway activity. Let each
bicyclist follow his or her own conscience.)

What’s more, the region’s weather from May through
late September or early October is generally conducive to a smooth
ride. Of course, some cyclists are more diehard than others, taking
the U.S. Postal Service approach toward bicycle riding: Rain, sleet
and snow be damned, they’ll ride through anything.

Sean Brodfuehrer, an architectural planner with UB’s
Capital Planning Group, is an avid cyclist who commutes from
Buffalo’s North Park neighborhood, about a 6-mile trip that
takes him half an hour. Brodfuehrer checks the radar to avoid rain
in the morning.

“But on the way home I will ride through whatever Mother
Nature sends,” he says. “The worst weather was a
torrential downpour. It was so bad I had to pull over for 15
minutes because I couldn’t see very well and, more
importantly, I didn’t expect that cars would see me through
water-covered windshields.”

Brodfuehrer bikes because it’s better for the environment,
and because it beats going to the gym. “There are too many
strains on my time and money to make a gym membership feasible, but
spending an extra 10 or 15 minutes on my commute allows me to both
get exercise and get to work,” he says.

Joe Pautler, a network architect with UBIT, rides from his home
in Depew for similar reasons. He began taking his bicycle to work
about seven years ago when he was training for his first Ironman
race and was looking for creative ways to maximize his training
time while balancing work and family obligations.

“Converting my commuting time into biking time was the
only way I could manage to get 20 to 25 hours of training time per
week,” he says.

Pautler continues to ride — as long as the temperature is
above 30 degrees — for financial reasons as well. “It
saves me approximately one gallon of gas per day when I commute by
bike. And it saves money on oil changes, brakes, tires, vehicle
depreciation, etc. Bicycle maintenance and supplies cost money,
too, but not nearly as much.”

For sustainability’s sake

UB has made strides in recent years to encourage and support
bicycling as part of the university’s focus on creating a
more sustainability-literate campus community.

It’s a small portion, but bicycling fits snuggly into the
“triple bottom line” approach — encompassing
social, environmental and financial benefits — UB has taken
toward sustainability. The environmental and financial benefits are
obvious: Biking translates to fewer vehicles on the road and less
money being spent at the gas pump.

“The amount of land that our car culture consumes is
staggering. The overall landscape of sprawl that cars enable, and
in many ways require, is devastating to our local
environment,” says Brodfuehrer.

The United Nations-backed World Happiness Report sheds some
light on the social side of bicycling. The happiest (Denmark) and
fourth-happiest (Netherlands) countries on the list happen to be
nations known for the number of people who bicycle by choice, not
out of necessity.

“At UB, we promote bicycling for a number of
sustainability goals,” says Ryan McPherson, UB’s chief
sustainability officer. “When about 20 percent of the
university’s carbon footprint is based on transportation,
encouraging bicycling is a great way to help cut down on that. But
there’s also the wellness angle, that biking is good for your
physical and mental health.”

McPherson practices what he preaches. He can often be seen
cruising around campus in his fold-up bicycle and, every few weeks,
he makes the 30-mile ride to campus from his home in East Aurora.
“It takes about 90 minutes if I’m really moving,”
he says.

UB Sustainability will continue to work with Parking and
Transportation Services and UB Facilities crews to add more
amenities for bicycling to both meet demand and the
university’s sustainability goals.

“We want to be on par with our higher education peers, but
we also want to provide the options that our students are
demanding,” McPherson says. “It’s very clear they
want bicycle infrastructure. They don’t necessarily want to
own a bike, which is why we have Bikeshare, and then there are
those who bike straight through winter.”

Bikeshare beckons

As a large public research university, UB attracts students,
faculty and staff from all over the globe. Many of UB’s
international students arrive on campus with few possessions
— especially a car or bicycle — and lots of faculty and
staff prefer more environmentally friendly ways to cross campus to
teach, meet with students and attend meetings.

That’s where UB Bikeshare becomes a convenient, affordable
option, even for people like Wellness Education Services’
Cochran.

“I’m a Bikeshare member because it’s so
convenient on the days I don’t ride to work,” she says.
“I can hop on a bike at the Student Union and rip over to
Ellicott Complex for a meeting there. It’s the fastest way to
get around on campus.”

For students, Bikeshare can be a good alternative to crowded
shuttles and buses to get from one part of campus to the other.

UB launched a beta version of Bikeshare in 2014 with about 40
members signing up. That shot up to 344 in 2016, and more than 100
people have signed up since March. The annual membership fee is
$15, and the first hour is always free. (Learn more here.)

Users can find and unlock a bike online, through the Bikeshare
app, or by entering their account information directly into the
keypad on the lockbox of the bike. Once the PIN code is entered,
the lock is disengaged and the bike is ready to use. At the end of
the ride, the user slides the U-bar into the lock, the bike
notifies the system that your ride is over and the bike is
available to others.

“It’s a great way to get to know the campus. For the
amount of money that it costs, the ease of use and the
availability, it’s probably one of the best things going on
campus for leisure or travel,” says Matthew Reitmeier,
outreach and operations manager for Parking and Transportation
Services.

Many members of the UB community don’t realize that
UB’s Bikeshare system is connected to the same one (via
Shared Mobility) the city of Buffalo uses for its program. Riders
can use their UB Bikeshare membership to cruise around Canalside,
among other city bicycling hot spots.

On the North Campus, the Ellicott Creek Trailway bike path
beckons for a leisurely lunchtime ride. Be sure to check out some
of the sites — like Amherst Memorial Hill, a grove of oak
trees and a monument dedicated to the nearly 3,000 people who died
during the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks — or stop and
take a seat to enjoy the soothing sound of the creek.

While there are all sorts of ways to get to UB’s campuses
from Buffalo and its surrounding suburbs, riders agree the key is
to just try it.

“I often tell people that it’s really easy to come
up with reasons why you can’t ride your bike to work,”
says Pautler, “but if you really want to do it, you can find
a solution to just about every challenge.”

The English department’s Miller puts it more simply:
“It’s good exercise and it’s good for the
environment, so why not?”

For many people, navigating through vehicular traffic remains an
intimidating obstacle to commuting by bicycle. But Buffalo
motorists are, for the most part, respectful and aware of
cyclists.

Sure, there are those who feel their super-charged Hemi-powered
tank is the only thing that should be on the road. But hey, life
isn’t always a leisurely stroll through the delightful
daffodil fields of Denmark.

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